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Post by grovey31 on Dec 10, 2020 14:26:37 GMT -5
I have been thinking about all things golf lately and thought a few ideas would be fun to discuss here. The first one is Naturalism vs. Minimalism. I really do believe they are two different things but I tend to agree with both ideas. To me, naturalism is the blending of the natural environment into your created environment and creating man made things that appear to be natural. It is officially defined as such: "(in art and literature) a style and theory of representation based on the accurate depiction of detail". Minimalism, as I would define it, is doing as little to the environment as possible to make it playable for golf. It is officially defined this way: "a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme sparseness and simplicity.
My design philosophy and mentality is naturalism. I love the idea of finding holes but I usually start out with a flat-ish plot and build my landforms from there. I also always have a geographical location to use as inspiration and will try to create fun and interesting landforms most commonly found in that location, ie. dunes on the cost of New Zealand. The trick is to make them look as natural as possible and as if they have been there forever. After that, it's all about how to best use them in your routing and design and how you can bend them into the rest of the sculpting as seamlessly as possible. I used this method on Windstone and specific holes such as 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 15. Most of these features are dunes and you will either play over them, next to them, up ontop of them, or down off of them.
As I said, I really think both ideas work great and in an ideal world you would even blend them together. I would certainly lean to the naturalism camp myself but I'm curious as to what other people think and what their philosophy is on this specific topic.
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Post by lessthanbread on Dec 10, 2020 15:34:44 GMT -5
Excellent excellent topic. I do believe there is a strong connection between art theory and building a golf course (especially when we talk about virtual course design like TGC). We are not just creating environments or video game “levels” to be functionally fun to interact with (play golf on), there is the aspect of course design that is art and must be appealing to the eye. Some have argued art has no place in course design and that’s fine, it’s what they prefer.
I like to attempt to (but don’t always succeed at) pushing naturalism to the limit. I like scenes/landscapes/whatever on golf courses that have a “Wow!” factor but are still grounded in reality. An environment that makes you say wow, but also still could exist in real life.
I think designers get into trouble when they do too much for that Wow factor and they lose their audience when the final product just isn’t right and looks odd
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Post by PicnicGuy / BobalooNOLA on Dec 10, 2020 16:25:19 GMT -5
Count me in this camp, although my efforts pale next to some. I usually sculpt a plot before routing, with some general idea or plan of clubhouse area only. I wish the generated 'plants' were as useful as the trees & grasses, but they never seem very natural to me.
I am finding that the splining of grasses is helpful for someone like me who isn't going to plop a thousand individual ones, but finds clusters tough to work along shorelines or in narrow areas.
My latest is 'Murray's Spring's, a wetlands course with the Swiss theme, my most 'natural' in my last 3 or 4 releases.
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Post by tpetro on Dec 10, 2020 19:18:23 GMT -5
I like putting them hand in hand. The biggest thing for me with this is fairway sculpting: perfectly flat fairways bother me. Land does not exist like that, even on pan-flat plots. I always like to think that I'm just painting the surfaces onto the land and any additional sculpting is meant to add to that naturalism. Always come back to LACC and Streamsong. Two different types of land movement but both applicable.
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Post by Q on Dec 10, 2020 20:55:15 GMT -5
I like putting them hand in hand. The biggest thing for me with this is fairway sculpting: perfectly flat fairways bother me. Land does not exist like that, even on pan-flat plots. I always like to think that I'm just painting the surfaces onto the land and any additional sculpting is meant to add to that naturalism. Always come back to LACC and Streamsong. Two different types of land movement but both applicable. Would you say that while fairways remaining curved to reflect there natural landforms is generally a great choice, greens can generally can be sculpted quite heavily? I love creating a plot and attempting to plop down holes on the plot with as minimal sculpting as possible, but usually quite heavily sculpt the greens as I kind-of like the way the greens can stick out of the landscape around them
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Post by tpetro on Dec 10, 2020 21:01:56 GMT -5
I like putting them hand in hand. The biggest thing for me with this is fairway sculpting: perfectly flat fairways bother me. Land does not exist like that, even on pan-flat plots. I always like to think that I'm just painting the surfaces onto the land and any additional sculpting is meant to add to that naturalism. Always come back to LACC and Streamsong. Two different types of land movement but both applicable. Would you say that while fairways remaining curved to reflect there natural landforms is generally a great choice, greens can generally can be sculpted quite heavily? I love creating a plot and attempting to plop down holes on the plot with as minimal sculpting as possible, but usually quite heavily sculpt the greens as I kind-of like the way the greens can stick out of the landscape around them Yeah I'd agree with that - within reason of course. Playability is the primary concern with greens so whatever contouring makes the most sense should be there.
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Post by SteelVike on Dec 11, 2020 9:23:13 GMT -5
I am a complete naturalist when it comes to design. My main goal is for the course to look and feel like it could actually exist to the smallest details. I typically route my holes first, spline greens/fairways/rough one hole at a time, and then sculpt accordingly by adding camber and undulations to the fairways and rough, then do the greens last as they typically require the most attention to detail. As far as planting I like to plant major areas first, then once the course is laid out and sculpted I like to "fill plant" any areas that seem bare.
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Post by theclv24 on Dec 11, 2020 9:51:47 GMT -5
These terms have gotten a lot fuzzier to me lately. I can't remember where, but I remember listening to a discussion about courses from designers like Langford & Moreau, Banks, Raynor, etc. Back in their day, they might have been seen as the opposite of minimalist, since they moved so much dirt.
On the other hand, you could argue they were minimalist, because rather than doing a bunch of work to try and tie the course in to its surroundings, they did minimal tie ins, and left everything very stark. Whereas today you might see someone like Doak or C&C, who are often pointed to as the modern examples of minimalists, actually do a whole lot of earth moving in order to make things appear "natural".
I don't know if it's possible, or really all that beneficial, to try and capture courses or design styles with a single term. I do know, however, that I like both styles, and I think both are necessary to keep golf design well-rounded.
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Post by Q on Dec 11, 2020 16:36:34 GMT -5
*Robert trent jones jr looks fondly at all the dynamite he just used to blow up a beautiful valley"
"I can just use all this granite I just blew up to make all the bunker sand!" He grunted
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Post by b101 on Dec 12, 2020 3:47:06 GMT -5
I guess the interesting spin on this topic is that we have the ability to turn the plot to what we want. I very much lean toward the 'you can do both' mindset and have done as much recently. South Yarra's plot was built entirely to the course I had in my head, whilst Maurelle Point was built entirely around the plot I was given, barely sculpting the land.
You can totally do both, but I guess my guiding philosophy would always be to work with what the land gives you. Nothing frustrates me more than watching someone mindlessly destroying a cool landform on a plot with a hard flatten brush because they didn't think how it could be incorporated into the hole design. Even if I'm building from flat, I'll always work off whatever is thrown up as you go along. Hard to make individual, creative holes otherwise.
The video below exemplifies the minimalism concept, for me. Amazing how you can often just find golf holes ready-made if you look hard enough and think carefully about hazard placement:
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Post by cd06 on Dec 13, 2020 10:15:30 GMT -5
In terms of minimalism, it's quite a difficult term to define. I've been debating whether Huntercombe can be classified as "minimalist" for a little while because of its lack of bunkers, but at the same time the greens there look like dead elephants were imported and buried under them. On naturalist terms, it's important to have some undulations on a course. My home course near London has some fairway ripples but one half of it is as flat as a marble worktop and the other isn't much different. I really like Maurelle Point for a combination of both minimalism and naturalism in 2k21. Works really well.
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Post by grovey31 on Dec 14, 2020 18:11:03 GMT -5
These terms have gotten a lot fuzzier to me lately. I can't remember where, but I remember listening to a discussion about courses from designers like Langford & Moreau, Banks, Raynor, etc. Back in their day, they might have been seen as the opposite of minimalist, since they moved so much dirt.
On the other hand, you could argue they were minimalist, because rather than doing a bunch of work to try and tie the course in to its surroundings, they did minimal tie ins, and left everything very stark. Whereas today you might see someone like Doak or C&C, who are often pointed to as the modern examples of minimalists, actually do a whole lot of earth moving in order to make things appear "natural".
I don't know if it's possible, or really all that beneficial, to try and capture courses or design styles with a single term. I do know, however, that I like both styles, and I think both are necessary to keep golf design well-rounded.
This is well said and I would agree with most of it. Interesting point too about the guys you mentioned, that's certainly a different way to look at it. As for Doak and C&C, I would say they are the best examples of blending the two philosophies. They try to do as minimal major earth moving as possible but if they do, then they to do it to a degree that you cant even notice and would think it was always there. To me, that is the best possible approach/outcome. The part I agree with the most is your last point. A good blend of both is very important and it's also important not to paint anything into a corner.
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Post by joegolferg on Dec 15, 2020 5:04:38 GMT -5
I personally regard both of those things as the same. Reason being is that all natural/minimal golf courses require some tweaking here and there to get them to play correct and in some cases, as ironic as it sounds, to get them to look more natural considering the green sites or bunkers that have been placed. Mackenzie himself moved dirt and sometimes on a much larger scale than he would would have liked. Before he designed golf courses he made camouflage for the British army and this is how he became focused on blending and making courses seem natural to the player.
So for me naturalism is minimalism. There is a case for some courses being far more natural and organic than others such as the likes of Cairn, who claim that their course is 100% laid out on the land and not a patch of earth was moved but still the greens would have been surfaced and bunkers dug out.
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jayraygun
Weekend Golfer
Don't worry, that unintentional blindness was intentional.
Posts: 137
TGCT Name: JayRayGun
Tour: Challenge Circuit
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Post by jayraygun on Dec 17, 2020 10:59:02 GMT -5
I've designed my courses in both ways. On some I have plotted and designed every hole on paper first, marking where I want hills and valleys, water, trees, etc. I then create the course on a relatively flat parcel of land and sculpt around it. There are pros and cons I have found with this sort of design. The benefits are that I have a good idea about what each hole should look like before I go in. I also know that each hole is going to look, feel, and play differently. It can make adding the final touches like planting a bit easier because I know where I want everything to be. The downside is that I have painted myself into a lot of corners. Sometimes routing doesn't translate from paper theory into the game and I have to make changes on the fly that can have a ripple effect on the rest of the course. It also takes a lot more time sculpting and creating each landform on each hole the way I have pictured it. Then, you have to consider the land between the holes and try to blend that into your created landscape which can also be a challenge.
I have also created a plot, raised some random hills, dropped in some valleys, raised the water table, filled it out with trees, and then went looking for natural places to work in holes. Some of the benefits of this design to me are less time spent sculpting the surrounding areas and only really tinkering with fairway and green sculpting once the hole is laid out, the ability to use some of the auto-generated trees and plants to fill out the space between holes, and sometimes a more seemingly natural flow of the course through the land. The cons are that often I can have difficulty coming up with a unique hole design on the fly. For me, it's sometimes hard to look at a slice of land and say, oh yeah, I want a 450 yd dogleg right par 4 with and uphill shot into an elevated green. And then going on to the next hole saying, and here I want a 210 yd downhill par 3. Routing can also be a nuisance sometimes trying to fit holes into areas you've already plotted or getting through 14 holes and figuring out you're too far from where you wanted to end back at the clubhouse.
As with most things, I think a blend of the two design philosophies can be used with great affect. On my latest course I had an idea about how I wanted the course to look but no idea about the actual holes. I plotted the land and made it look like what I wanted it to and then started my flyby looking for hole locations. After I had mapped out where I wanted them, I then went to the pen and paper to sketch a few designs. I had to switch up a few of the holes based on my designs (things like flipping two holes because I didn't want one hole playing uphill leading to another hole playing up that same hill) but I didn't pigeonhole myself halfway through the design process.
I also started planting a few of the holes early (I normally save most planting for last) to help give me a better idea as I went along for what design elements I could implement throughout the course.
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